


when tomorrow comes

by galaxyeyedrops, pipecleanerFlowers



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Final Fantasy X AU, M/M, Mention of alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 07:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4556001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyeyedrops/pseuds/galaxyeyedrops, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipecleanerFlowers/pseuds/pipecleanerFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blitzball was just a pipe dream, a child’s hope that was meant to be crushed by the oncoming and inevitable future. Haru’s convinced that he’s waited far too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when tomorrow comes

**Author's Note:**

> Team MakoHaru's first submission to SASO15 :) hope you enjoy!

_I’m not afraid when the rain won’t stop._

~

Makoto wakes up in the middle of the night, the cool air from the open windows freezing the sweat on his neck.

The dorm is quiet, save for Haru’s soft breathing in the bed across the room, and Makoto rolls over onto his back, trying to get the flashing images of black crashes of waves on the shore to fade from the backs of his eyelids. (Every time he closes them, they’re still there along with the salt in his throat.)

“You’re awake.”

Makoto turns to see Haru in the bed beside his, staring up at the ceiling with his too-blue, moonlit eyes. “Yeah.”

“Trouble sleeping?” Haru asks.

Makoto lets out a soft breath of a laugh. “A bit. Nothing to worry about.”

Haru sticks his hand up, twisting it in a familiar gesture, and water dances up from the glass on his bedside table, swirling between his fingers.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You have nothing to worry about.”

~

The streets of Zanarkand are filled with shimmering lights, billboards, and exhaust fumes. They’re disorienting at best, glittering, glittering, forever glittering with false promises and speeding tricks around every corner. Haru doesn’t like going out, really. He’d rather spend his free time lying in bed, staring at the coffee stains on his dorm’s ceiling.

Unfortunately, the food in his fridge doesn’t replenish itself, and with Makoto out of town (plus his own refusal to pay for a university meal plan), Haru doesn’t have too many options. The local grocery stores all close around 10pm (earlier if there’s a big match), so it’s out of necessity that Haru ends up at a gas station a few stops from campus, hands filled with as many instant ramen cups and red bean buns as he can carry.

The acne-ridden teen behind the counter rings up his purchases with a sluggishness to rival his own, counting his change slowly and shoving far too many items into a single bag. The bell by the door jingles as he leaves.

Traffic is, as usual, blocked, and the bus gets stuck at the stoplight before the blitzball stadium.

The giant television screen at the nearest intersection runs quickly through a few news highlights, starting off with a report on Bevelle’s elections and finishing off with a picture of a man with red hair and a familiar shark-toothed grin.

It figured. Zanarkand was the biggest city in Spira, and yet he still couldn’t avoid Rin.

~

They called Haru a prodigy at 10, a genius at 15.

Makoto had been by his side through the whole process, watching Haru get straight A’s through his Nature Manipulation classes, sleep through Summoning and History, win all his duels against peers and upperclassmen alike…

He was brilliant. But he was more than just his grades.

The fair at the start of their first year of high school had Makoto and Haru wandering around the booths, looking at all the different clubs, getting flyers and sign-up forms pushed in their faces. Volleyball, cycling, basketball, and even card games, but Haru didn’t bat an eyelash at any of them.

Until, “Hey! You look like you like water!”

Haru’s eyes snap up on comedic cue and Makoto sighs, knowing the familiar routine.

“I do,” he says seriously.

“Well then do we have the sport for you! Everyone in Spira’s heard of blitzball, right?”

The blitzball club’s stall is probably the reason all the other club stalls look so lackluster: there’s multiple screens set up replaying old matches, lanyards with the school logos, brochures about the game itself… Makoto sure knows where this school’s money went.

“Blitzball…” Haru echoes, looking up at the screens, watching players spin and dance and shoot through the sphere of water, scoring and defending. “Of course. Who hasn’t?”

Makoto knows exactly where this is going and he doesn’t like it. Their elementary school didn’t have a blitzball team, because they first focused on swimming lessons that Haru looked forward to every week like it was the highlight of his entire life instead of the mackerel packed in his bento, because kids needed to learn how to swim before they could even think about playing the underwater sport.

And… here they are, starting high school and ready to play.

(Or, at the very least, Haru’s ready.)

Haru snatches up the forms in the blink of an eye as the guy -- or rather, Captain Mikoshiba Seijuuro, as he had so kindly introduced himself -- starts talking about club activities, tournaments, friendlies, different positions, etc, etc, until Makoto drowns him out and stares helplessly at Haru who’s already filling out his name, year, age, and health card information.

~

“What did you guys even do for fun these past couple years?” Nagisa asks, kicking back into one of the university’s stadium seats, staring up into the sphere of water that is their playing field. “I don’t know if I could live without blitzball to drown out the monotony of classes and homework!”

Haru shrugs. Makoto inconspicuously casts NulTide over himself.

“We wanted to focus on our studies,” Makoto supplies, breaking the odd silence.

Haru grunts in agreement, because it’s better than the truth (and he’s pretty sure Nagisa wouldn’t like that one bit).

“And I never played to begin with,” Makoto continues, “I just cleaned up and brought everyone water and towels…”

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Nagisa says, puffing out his cheeks in a pout. “Well, no excuses now! We’re all gonna play together again and that’s that!”

His face breaks out into a happy grin and Haru wonders if Makoto is really okay with handing in the folded up team sign-up forms clutched between his fingers. The stadium, much larger than the one their tiny suburban high school had, towers over them, as big as the ones the pros played in in the downtown core, glowing blue with bright lights and chlorine.

“What’s with that face, Mako-chan? It’ll be fun,” Nagisa says, prompting a nervous laugh from him.

“Ah, nothing, nothing!” Makoto says, waving his hands and the forms with them. “Just a bit nervous. Haru hasn’t played in a while.”

He’s not wrong.

“We’ll think about it,” Haru says, before turning and making his way down the steps, out of the stadium, before nostalgia can wash him away like a tidal wave.

~

Makoto has never been one for the water -- he’d gone through the swimming lessons in elementary school because it was mandatory, but blitzball was a contact sport underwater and there was nothing in Spira that could convince him to actually play.

So he became a manager for their high school team along with another classmate (Kou, he reminds himself, not Gou) who only ever seems to be there to ogle the players and hang out with her brother, who was apparently the player with the most potential at the tryouts (and hell if anyone would ever let the rest of them forget it).

And then Haru had come along the next day, having missed the first practice, and tipped the whole established hierarchy over.

Makoto wants to slam his head into the nearest wall when Matsuoka Rin grins, all sharp teeth and underlying curiosity, and challenges Haru to a one-on-one.

“Sure,” Haru responds, and Makoto dies a little on the inside as the entire club goes up in a chorus of “ooh’s.”

The captain lets them take it to the water, throwing a blitzball at them and grinning like this is exactly the kind of friendly rivalry that’s welcome on a sports team. Which, okay, point, but?

“I can’t believe this,” Makoto mumbles while Kou starts cheering on her brother.

They trade goals, shot for shot, keep up with each other like they’ve known each other forever and can read every one of the other’s moves. Mikoshiba’s impressed. Gou pouts at his side. Mako watches, eyes half covered by his fingers as he stares, mesmerized by the quick movements deep underwater that they managed to pull off so gracefully, so quickly, that it was hard to imagine that the water was even there to resist them.

Mikoshiba lets it go on, and on… and on, cutting fifteen minutes and quite a few air breaks from Haru and Rin, into the practice, before he knocks hard on the glass sphere and calls them back out.

They’re panting, and would probably be a sweaty mess if it weren’t for the fact that they’re soaking wet and dripping with water.

“You guys really went all out, huh?” Mikoshiba says with a grin, slamming his hands down on their shoulders as if to say “good job.”

“He might replace me as future ace,” Rin says with another edged grin before letting out a laugh. “You’re really good, Haru.”

“Thanks,” Haru replies, glancing toward the tiled floors. “You’re… good too.”

~

There’s only one rule to casting water magic.

You call for it.

You call for the water and it chooses to respond to you or not. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, along with everything else that’s pure and simple in this world, Besaid University is more than ready to shake that up. And thus it introduces Advanced Magic Theory 301.

It’s a mixed major class, required for everyone pursuing any kind of mage certification, with a professor who still hasn’t finished going over safety measures.

The only solace is that Makoto sits behind him, long legs pressed against the back of Haru’s own chair, his feet resting in the basket underneath. He falls asleep too often for Haru to just skip everyday and leave all notetaking to him, often dragging Haru along with his slow, rhythmic, comforting breaths.

The sphere of water, not much bigger than Haru’s palm, perfectly round and shimmering, is the only thing managing to keep him awake today. Idly, he tosses it from one hand to another, spinning it on one finger as their professor drones on about sanctioned elemental magic use, barely keeping its form when someone taps his shoulder.

“That’s amazing,” the blue haired boy says, eyes shining, and it takes a moment for Haru to place him as one of Nagisa’s friends from high school. Rei, he thinks his name was.

He nods and apparently that’s invitation to even more gushing. Rei’s mouth moves a mile a minute, talking about circumferences and forms to the point he rivals this course in nonsense. Nagisa’s definitely rubbing off on him.

“But you know,” Haru hears as Rei starts drifting down to Earth. “What it really reminds me of, is well... a Blitz Stadium.”

Haru stiffens.

Rei smiles, nostalgic, and continues. “I don’t know if you remember me, senpai, but I used to watch your matches in high school. Your swimming, the way you chased after the ball, it was beaut-”

“Over.” Haru interrupts sharply. The sphere in his hands breaks apart with a loud splash, soaking Haru’s notebooks, and drawing the attention of the entire class.

He takes a breath and starts again, softer this time. “I don’t do that anymore."

He turns back to his desk, notes blurry and ruined, and carefully draws the water back into one hand while he quickly packs his things with his other.

Behind him, an awake Makoto watches him leave.

~

Makoto stays back to clean up the stadium, mop up the water tracks, shove the towels in the laundry, and perform the rest of his managerial duties with Gou.

Haru stays back too, as he usually does because they walk home together and it only makes sense, it’s only been this way since forever. But instead of offering to help out, or sitting on the stadium seats towelling his hair dry, he pulls Rin, the new captain since Mikoshiba had graduated, aside.

“I don’t want to be a starter in the next game,” Makoto hears him request in a quiet, too calm voice.

“Why not? Scouts’ll be there, it’s a good opportunity for you to get noticed for scholarships,” Rin says, and Makoto sees him frown out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t feel well.”

“You said that last week. And the week before. Are you okay?” Rin goes to put a hand to Haru’s forehead, but Haru turns away.

“Rin. I’m serious.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Don’t put me in.”

Rin breathes, long and slow, and his shoulders tense up. “Don’t you wanna get into Luca U with me? Go pro?”

“I--.”

“This is an important game. They’re our rivals out here, tons of people are coming to see this one. Scouts! University scouts! Don’t you wanna get some visibility?”

“I don’t want to play,” Haru says instead of answering.

Rin growls. “What’s your problem, Haru?

Makoto pauses in his mopping, enough to watch Haru clench his fists and frown.

~

"I'm worried about you.”

"You shouldn't be," Haru replies, pressing the phone against his ear, knowing already that he doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not with Rin. Not now. "I have everything taken care of."

"Nagisa called me yesterday... He told me you still haven't joined."

Haru clicks his tongue, annoyed. "I told you, I don't care--"

"He told me about how you blew up at Rei in class,” Rin adds.

"...“

“Haru," Rin says finally, and Haru can hear him exhale, exasperated. "You can't mess around forever! The Abes are still scouting for next season and if you just show up here, I'm sure that--"

"Sure of what?" Haru's voice is bitter, long soured by hearing the same words, over and over again. "That they'll see my talent and I'll be off playing championship games with you?“

Rin doesn't reply. For all his detailed training plans and swimming theory, Rin is surprisingly simple. The type that believed you could get anything simply by working at it enough.

He doesn't understand how something people praise endlessly one year is just okay the next. Doesn't understand that for most people, childish dreams are things you leave behind.

"Goodbye Rin," he says and ends the call.

~

Homework is dull and classes drone by, but Makoto thinks about teaching at the end of it all and imagines he can get through it just fine if he just keeps looking up and ahead, at the goal beyond the expensive tuition and gruelling homework.

He’s in the kitchen, working through White Magic 102: First Aid on the tiny unstable dining table when Haru walks through the door into their dorm

“I’m home.”

“Welcome back,” Makoto greets with a smile. “How was class?”

“Alright,” Haru says, seeming to hesitate at the door, toeing off his sneakers and actually hanging up his jacket for once.

Makoto nods and goes back to his homework, trying to remember what his professor had said about the energy output of using Cura, versus the medicinal benefits of a normal potion. For some reason all of it is a lot more complicated than healers make it seem.

“Makoto?”

He looks up from his notes, pen midway to the page. “Yeah?”

Haru sits down on the seat beside his, hands clutching the edges of the chair, shoulders hunched just enough for Makoto to notice.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not really.”

Makoto waits, because it’s easier than to push, easier than to prod. Waiting is familiar, the most familiar it’s been since they started at Besaid U, since Haru declared that he wasn’t into blitzball anymore and that he wasn’t continuing, no matter how much Makoto knows his eyes sparkle whenever they pass by the school’s stadium.

Haru sighs, deciding to drop it for now, and gets up to pull a bag of chips out of the cupboard before retreating to his room.

Waiting takes Makoto to nearly midnight, when he’s throwing poptarts in the toaster and pouring himself another cup of coffee.

“Makoto?”

He snaps up, eyes blinking tiredly at Haru as he steps into the kitchen. “Hey. I thought you were asleep?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Ah.”

Haru’s beside him now, blue eyes glowing in the streetlights that stream in through cheap blinds.

Haru steps closer, still, and Makoto hits the refrigerator backing up, trying to read him, but it’s hard when it’s dark save for the flickering light above the dining table. He exhales, and Mako can feel it on his neck, shudders.

“Are you okay?”

The sounds of the city, bustling and bright even at midnight because Zanarkand never sleeps, never rests, fade as Haru’s lips press against Makoto’s. Hesitant, soft, and all Makoto’s ever wanted to admit to him since Haru’s first blitzball game in high school, maybe even before then.

When Haru pulls away, heels touching the ground again, eyelashes fluttering and casting shadows along his cheekbones, Makoto breathes again.

“Is this… okay?” Haru asks.

Makoto smiles. “It’s perfect.”

~

Third year starts and nothing changes. Even with promise rings Haru had bought, glinting on his ring finger, something doesn’t sit right.

Calls from Rin come more often, more concerned, more irritated. Nagisa’s poking and prodding hasn’t changed Haru’s mind about blitzball at all. Makoto does everything he can between homework, classes, and his part-time job to try and help Haru, who’s only dropped further from everyone.

He knows the way Haru’s eyes sparkle when they pass the school’s Blitz Stadium, knows that it’s nostalgia that takes them that route on the way to the Theory buildings when they could just as easily take the one that goes through the main street instead.

He knows that Haru’s been screening Rin’s calls, blocked Nagisa on Ameblo.

“Did you get question five on the last worksheet?” Makoto asks, because if he says anything else (even if it needs to be voiced), he’s not sure what will happen.

He’s not sure he wants to lose Haru altogether.

(Or what’s left of him.)

“Yeah, it’s the third choice,” Haru says, flipping back to it to confirm. “Holy Water heals curses, but it’s detrimental to those affected by the Zombie curse and makes their condition worse.”

“Thanks.”

Haru’s a prodigy, a genius, even when his head is elsewhere.

Makoto wonders if he misses the water, misses the feel of the leather ball in his hands, between the grips of his gloves, the cheers booming from the stadium… Rin beside him, grinning with sharp teeth and a desire to win that always prompted Haru along with him.

“Wanna watch a movie tonight? You can pick.”

“Sure,” Haru says, eyes never moving from his homework, voice more monotone than Makoto ever remembers it being.

~

The couches in their dorm are soft. They’re secondhand and cheap, covered in old worn leather that cracks even further under their combined weight.

When Haru sinks in, tossing the one gil per night rented dvd at Makoto, he doesn’t expect him to put it on the coffee table and pat the seat beside him instead.

“Haru,” Makoto looks at him, unblinking. “We need to talk.”

Haru sighs. He can’t say he didn’t see this one coming.

“I’m not going to play blitzball,” he says simply, annoyed he even has to form the words on his lips for Makoto to understand.

There's a pause. Makoto takes a deep breath before switching tack.

"I want you to be happy, Haru."

"I am happy," Haru counters. "Classes are going well and we’ll get our mage certifications soon. We're happy."

"Is that really enough?“ Makoto's eyes are piercing. "Is that all you want?“

"Why wouldn't it be?" Haru says, watching Makoto fiddle with his promise ring. "If you have a problem, just say it."

"I think you're amazing, Haru. The most amazing person I've ever met and I want to see you be even more amazing." Makoto smiles. "That's all I want."

"That's stupid," Haru replies, blunt as ever. There's an I'm not that special that isn't said but fully heard.

He grabs Makoto's hand and lets their fingers interlink. "What about this, then? Are you saying this isn't enough?"

Makoto shakes his head and Haru can feel something in his chest tighten. Makoto's voice is hazy, distant as he speaks.

The words are familiar, things like "I know you can do it" and "You love blitzball, don't you?“, yet they're drifting in an unfamiliar fog, hard to make out and even harder to block.

The assault continues, punctuated with Makoto's soft voice and softer smiles, but when he gets to the "I'm holding you back," Haru runs.

They break up, officially, the next morning.

~

Exams pass. They don’t talk to each other, Haru staying to his room and Makoto moving his work from the kitchen to his room as well.

It’s quiet. Too quiet, and too frustrating. The winter semester starts and they have the same schedule, save for the educational classes Makoto has for his teaching program. They don’t sit together, even when Makoto looks at him with bright hopeful eyes that wish things could rewind, just a little.

But time can’t do that. Not with all the magic in the world, Haru can’t stop it from moving forward, continuing onward until everything feels too late.

He stops by the Blitz Stadium on the way to class. Actually stops to look at it, not from the corner of his eyes, but straight on. And his chest burns with how much he wants to try again. Makoto knew it, this whole time.

He did too.

It’s a mistake, Haru thinks as he turns away and heads back to the dorms. These three years were all just a huge mistake.

~

Haru always leaves first, nowadays. Mako has the apartment free to himself for at least half an hour every morning before their first class, because out of all the actions Haru could have ever taken, it’s the one where seeing each other became so painful he finally started waking up early just to avoid Makoto.

It was painful, at first, but he got used to the quiet. It was nice to have time alone to gather his thoughts before class and figure out his schedule for the day, the schedule that no longer needed to include Haru by default.

He’s about to step out the door, ready to leave, when he opens it to the sight of Haru with his key out.

“Haru?”

His eyes drop to the floor. “Makoto. I--”

“We’re both gonna be late if we don’t start heading over now.”

Haru licks his lips, nods.

“Let’s go.”

They fall into step, passing through their usual route as Makoto watches Haru struggle to speak, struggle to put thoughts into words.

Makoto just smiles. “You know, everything’ll be alright.”

~

Makoto pulls out the first suitcase of many from the trunk of their car. He lines them up, stacks cardboard boxes upon cardboard boxes, pretends he doesn't see Haru cast an anti-gravity spell as he carries them into the building.

Cherry blossoms fall as they walk, pink petals scattering across their hair and belongings, filling them with the sweet scent of new beginnings and hopeful futures.

When they’re all moved into their new apartment, posters hung on the walls and drawers filled with their clothes, Makoto pulls out a bottle of sake.

“Mom said we should celebrate the next chapter,” he says when Haru looks at him questioning as he pours two cups and hands him one.

“To the future?”

Makoto smiles. “To the future.”

Their cups clink, a plastic echo, and Makoto wonders if Haru still wants to be ordinary.


End file.
